Connecting to a web service

In ION, you can model document flows for web service connection in the same way as for other connectors. In the document flow, a web service activity is added and the web service connection point is selected.

To create web service connection points:

  1. Click Connect > Connection Points.
  2. Specify a (unique) name. The logical ID that identifies the connection point is derived from the name. For example, if the name is MyWebService, the logical id is infor.ws.mywebservice.
  3. Specify the URL to the WSDL:
    For example https://somewhere:1234/myservice.svc?wsdl or https://somewhere:1234/myservice?wsdl
    • The URL starts with http:// or https://. In the latter case, ION automatically retrieves the public key to connect to the service when loading the WSDL and verifies if the certificate is trusted in ION.
    • If the certificate is not trusted, an alert to download the certificate is displayed.
    • Download the certificate using your browser and inspect the certificate.
    • When you agree on the authenticity of the certificate, click Import and Trust Certificate.
    • A window is displayed. Browse to the location of your certificate and select it. Click Open.
    • The certificate is imported in ION's trust store. Continue working with the URL.
  4. Specify the authentication:
    • Select None if no authentication is required to invoke the web service.
    • Select Basic and specify a user name and password if authentication is required.

    Note that the same authentication is used when loading the WSDL and (after activation) when invoking the web service from the ION Service. Either the same authentication must be sufficient for both the WSDL and the service, or the WSDL is accessed without authentication. The web service connector cannot be used if a different user name is required for accessing the WSDL and accessing the service.

    Additionally, if authentication is required for accessing the WSDL and the WSDL contains import statements, then these are loaded if the URL (at least up to the first question mark) is the same. If the URL differs then the authentication mechanism cannot recognize it.

    Note: 

    As specified in RFC 2617, using basic authentication is not secure when using http, because user name and password are passed over the network as text. Using https avoids this.

    When a connection using basic authentication is unsuccessful, a retry is attempted with same credentials using Windows NTLM authentication.

  5. Click Load WSDL.

    The loaded WSDL is used in ION Desk to enable you to select the operations and to connect to the service in the ION Service. If the WSDL is changed on the server, the configuration in ION is not changed until you click Load WSDL again.

    When a WSDL was loaded before, and you already selected operations to be used by the connection point, ION checks whether the selected operations are compatible. If one or more operations are not available in to the new WSDL, or the used input or output is incompatible, these are removed. You are asked to confirm this; if you click No then the changed WSDL is not loaded.

  6. Select the service to be used.
    If the WSDL only contains one service, the service name is selected automatically.
  7. Select the port name.
    If the selected service only has one port, the port name is selected automatically. Note that if you want to use operations from multiple services or from multiple service ports you must create multiple web service connection points.
  8. Click Test to verify that you can connect to the selected service and port using the selected authentication.